About a year and a half ago I had the idea to start a blog. I wanted to get more practice creating data visualizations by diving into topics I’m interested in. Maybe I could create visualizations based on the script of my favorite TV series, Twin Peaks, uncovering new observations about the characters based on their dialogue. Or maybe analyze the most common LEGO brick colors across different set themes. I could even examine differences between Leo Tolstoy’s fictional vs. non-fictional writing, or illustrate how his favorite themes change throughout his writing career.
I’m still interested in all these ideas, but I tend to undertake projects and then never finish them. In fact I usually don’t even get to the undertaking phase—I tend to just plan future projects until the plans grow so big that I get overwhelmed and abandon them. That’s what has happened with these ideas. So with my wife Sophie’s encouragement, I am starting this blog with one of her ideas so it remains safe from my reckless imagination.
On July 23, 2024, Sophie attended Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Hamburg, Germany. Since then, I’ve been exposed to the excited “clowning” of Swifties via Sophie’s For You Page on TikTok. Taylor leaves subtle hints about her next steps hidden throughout her concerts. She invites her fans to hunt for these hints, separating the red herrings from the real cues for what’s to come. Sometimes the hunt is successful, but sometimes the misdirections, whether intentional or not, make the fans look like clowns (hence the term “clowning”).
One particular area of interest for the Swifties is the outfits Taylor wears on her Eras Tour. It seems that some of her hints may hide in the number of days, shows, etc. between certain outfits. Taylor wears different outfits for the different eras throughout her shows, so there’s plenty to examine here. My project begins with the T-shirts she wears in the RED era.
I hope this blog will be a space for many more finished visualizations in the future. My aim is to post one visualization per week on any variety of topic. I might stick with Taylor Swift for a bit, because there’s no shortage of clues to analyze and the Swifties need my help.
Special thanks to Nick Braun (@nicksversion on TikTok) for carefully collecting Taylor’s outfit data throughout the Era’s Tour. I used Nick’s spreadsheet to create this visualization and couldn’t have done it without them!